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Every Sunday morning when I was a kid growing up in a trailer park in Del Rio, Texas was a special time, usually punctuated by the Sunday funnies, a humongous bowl of Frosted Cornflakes (extra milk, please!) and, of course, WGN’s mid-morning weekend lineup. For those not in the know, WGN was (and still is, I assume) a television station out of Chicago which, back in the halcyon days of pre-internet and pre-streaming, was a veritable goldmine of old TV show reruns (My Little Margie, Bachelor Father, I Married Joan, Burns and Allen) and the most exotic and obscure monster movies than you could shake a wooden stake at. One of my all-time favorite shows which that fondly-recalled station tirelessly aired one day a week was the 1957 ABC series Zorro. If you’re a kid who has just discovered Robert Louis Stevenson and have a hankering for adventure – and what kid doesn’t? – then finding your way to this Guy Williams-starring vehicle about swashbuckling chivalry was akin to manna from heaven. Zorro stood side-by-side right next to the Cisco Kid and the Lone Ranger in my youthful estimation and to this very day I can recite the catchy theme song to this nearly-forgotten iteration of creator Johnston McCulley’s seminal (and mustachioed) creation:
Out of the night,
When the full moon is bright,
Comes the horseman known as Zorro.
This bold renegade
Carves a “Z” with his blade,
A “Z” that stands for Zorro.
Zorro, Zorro, the fox so cunning and free,
Zorro, Zorro, who makes the sign of the Z.
All of my warm nostalgia for Zorro came flashing back to me recently when the news broke from our good pals over at Variety that the storied creation was set for a full-fledged television series reboot; the eight year old lad I once was heartily approves.
The deal to get Zorro back on television sets around the globe inched closer to being a reality when production house Mediawan Rights boarded the adventure train to work alongside one of the key architects of the reboot, Spanish production shingle Secuoya Studios. In this new partnership, Mediawan will be delegated with distributing the new show on an international level.
The new Zorro will take place in the Los Angeles of the 1830s and is set to star Miguel Bernardeau as Man of the Hour himself. Joining him will be co-star Renata Notni who will tackle the role of Lolita Marquez. Also signing up for this bit of swashbuckling fun will be thespians Dalia Xiucoatl and Emiliano Zurita.
“we are proud to be the international distributor of this powerful and original new version of Zorro, an iconic and timeless hero,” Mediawan Rights Big Wheel Valerie Vleeschouwer said in a press release, also adding that the acquisition by Mediawan of the new show represents the production house’s “ambition to support strong and high-end productions worldwide.”
They say you can never go home again, but this former WGN latchkey kid will certainly try when the new Zorro premieres sometime in 2023!
